Archives

She had first seen them in the window two weeks’ earlier and had stopped to admire them every day since. Amanda loved shoes. Not on the Imelda Marcos scale, but without a doubt, they were her greatest love. Most weekends when she went out for retail therapy she found herself drawn to the window of …

It is understandable that we have different fears. There is nothing to forgive Yet you scare so easy when I turn up at the door at midnight– Looking for an alchemist—aching– to be– purified– Cleansed— and promising myself. The body Is gold, free of imperfection, Refined form. There are no open pores: how is the body breathing? Listening To your heavy breathing— Eating away …

Issue 14: Gold Gold is a colour that brings out lots of human emotion – happiness, yearning, greed. It is the colour of wealth and riches but also that of excess – who doesn’t think of the gold-dripping excesses of the 7-star hotel in Dubai or the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican where they think …

‘They have to go underground,’ he said pointing to different places on a map with an advantage, that advantage a past lover has who has seen the divorce papers ahead of you, has seen the future without you in it. The kind of advantage that can sink a man. These are fucking animals, Floyd Doherty …

I come here from time to time, my head full of puzzles to read the graffiti and mingle with the flag-wavers, the fanatics, light in their eyes unfurling like pennons as they glare on those of us who prefer a quiet life. If questioned, I retreat with shrugged shoulders, slipping away …

She is the infant, standing on her own in the corner of the school yard, bog-brown hare, raggy green dress in a sea of uniform blue. She is the teenage girl who stays out all night, flirts with older men, hopes they buy her double shots of whatever’s cheap and available. She is the twenty …

To the left, left, left QUICK MARCH! Halt! Right TURN! OGHLAIDH ISTEACH! “Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your parcels We have commandeered this building To be our Central Command. With its pillars of stones, And our blood and bones, We will invoke A nation’s rising To the world. Six times, three hundred years, We again …

Nationalist Be proud, you vote and choose where the X marks the spot. A piece of white paper where once was a handkerchief. Take aim, pause, exhale and hit with the ballot from your smoking gun. You fought for this. Be proud, you chose the uniform and took up arms, you marked well every spot …

The mountains swallow the sun, The air crisp as a letter unfurling, Roused from bed with eyes glued shut, They shiver shoulder-to-shoulder. Wind fresh and ripe, Birds just out of flight, While a Widow chokes on a battle-cry. As one they trudge to the weaponry, Selecting what seems to fit best, Quaking in helmets that …